


Hangin' on the wire

by Anuna



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Divergence, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Skyeward Month, Smut, Soulmate marks, Weakness, week one - memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-17 23:17:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4684925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anuna/pseuds/Anuna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grant Ward thought he had it all covered. He had his soul mark removed, just as his mentor demanded. Bonding with a soulmate would just be a source of weakness. Everything worked well - until he touched the beserker staff and his soul mark returned. (Soulmates AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hangin' on the wire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PrawnCrackers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrawnCrackers/gifts).



> So, this is my first serious attempt to write a soulmate fic. I should mention that my knowledge about this trope comes from a lot of fics across few different fandoms that I've read, and now I tried to write my own and do it in somewhat original fashion. This fic is set in season one, and it's a canon divergence after set "The Well" - of course in an alternate universe where soulmates exist. 
> 
> The title comes from the song "You do something to me" by Paul Weller. I recommend listening, because I used it as a soundtrack while I wrote this. Special thanks to **CaptainSummerDay** who helped me clear my thoughts and work through the writer's block. *hugs*
> 
> Dear **PrawnCrackers** I hope you'll enjoy this. I struggled with it and I'm not sure it makes sense. Well, it does in my head, i just hope I managed to make it sensible to you and everyone else.

_You do something wonderful_  
_Then chase it all away_  
_Mixing my emotions_  
_That throws me back again_

_Hanging on the wire, yeah_  
_I'm waiting for the change_  
_I'm dancing through the fire_  
_Just to catch a flame an' feel real again_

 

* * *

 

 

There were thousands of internet sites dedicated to soul bonds and soulmate identifying marks. Ward couldn't look up any of them right now.

 

His wrist was burning. Not literally burning, no – his entire body was tired and feeling some kind of pain, but there was particular burning sensation enveloping his wrist, where his soulmate ink used to be. He vaguely remembered the feeling after he had it removed ( _It's just a weakness, son, besides do you really think it would matter? To you?_ ). The pain was similar, it just felt... reversed. It felt like the chemicals burned into his skin while the evidence of someone out there Ward could belong to was fading away.

 

Right now it felt like something was trying to burn its way out of him, ever since he touched the damn asgardian staff of rage.

 

It showed up in the middle of his adventure. May interrupted his attempts to take the acrid rage out on the boxing bag. When he stopped hitting, soaked with sweat and blind with memories he never ever wanted to recall, his wrist was aching and itching. He looked at it, and there it was – the elegant shape of a bird in flight, whose wings looked like fire and ash.

 

He always thought it was too beautiful for him anyway.

 

And it was just his luck, he thought, because he stared at almost identical mark on Skye's wrist each time they trained.

 

(And every time he did, he told himself that his used to be different. Smaller, rougher, with different wings. Not a _phoenix_ , but some nondescript bird mid flight.)

 

Ward stared at it now, as he sat in the dim Dublin bar. It was a phoenix. It was the exact same kind of bird he stared at on Skye's wrist, while he meticulously pushed all and any longing aside, until all of this had happened. And now he sat with a burning, itching wrist after he barely managed to turn down her offer to talk – and for a moment, as she placed her hand onto his, he froze.

 

He actually froze like he rarely did, because all the voices, all the raw, and painful memories, and all the aches within his body had gone silent as if by a miracle.

 

And naturally, returned with a howling vengeance when her hand retreated from his.

 

Ward sat and nursed his drink, hoping that the cacophony of voices and things said to him would calm down. The things Simmons and Fitz loved to discuss about in front of Skye, the genetics of soul marks, the gene markers, the compatibility, the scientific proof behind the myth of that one perfect person being there for you and only for you.

 

Like pieces of a puzzle.

 

Damn _everything_.

 

And then, there was Randolph's comment about beserker rage and love. Ward's mind recoiled at the thought, in what he recognized as fear, which was strange. So many mixed, intense emotions, so many things filling his chest as if they managed to escape heavily guarded captivity and now ran rampart inside of him. He didn't think he'd have a name for single one; he spent last fifteen years in what he assumed was a state or perpetual numbness. Now he wondered if it was actually hunger.

 

And it would all worked out fine, just fine, even if it meant another night spent alone with a bottle until his mind was sufficiently numb, so he could give in to his exhausted and battered body. Simmons was going to be so very pissed off tomorrow, but Grant didn't care, no, he didn't want to face her, he didn't want to answer her questions and bring himself into proper medical care. He didn't deserve it. He failed almost everyone who mattered.

 

But then he turned the corner and there she was – in an oversized hoodie and yoga pants, with messed up hair and a pitcher of ice in hand. And all Grant could think about was how it felt when he hand touched his. How everything went silent, as if screaming inside his mind had been replaced with cool and soft cocoon of _nothing._ And he could rest. He could finally rest because nothing was lurking from behind the corner.

 

Skye blinked at him. His wrist burned for closeness.

 

“Hey,” she said. “Thought you'd gone to bed.”

 

“I -,” he started, and stopped, his eyes fixed to her right arm and the wrist she unconsciously rubbed. His own arm stopped mid movement as he pressed it against his side. Skye pulled back the sleeve of her hoodie, frowning at the mark he knew was there.

 

“What the heck,” she said, “this never happened before.”

 

And before he could think it through and decide it was best not to do anything, Grant was crossing the distance to her. He tried to be as gentle as possible as he took her hand in his. Momentarily everything stopped and he paused for breath. Skye gave him a sharp look, but he kept his eyes focused on her hand and his fingers – the contrast of his bruised and cut knuckles against her skin that was smooth – and right now, angry red around her soul ink.

 

“Ward,” she said suddenly and her hands were moving before he could pull away from her.

 

She was tugging at his sleeve, unbuttoning the single button of his shirt that kept his wrist hidden. “Oh. Holy no way,” she said when she finally uncovered what he kept hidden under it. “Ward?”

 

“It's nothing,” he rushed.

 

“Bullshit,” she said, giving him a look so serious, she almost seemed like someone he didn't really know. “You told me you had none! And you didn't, I saw your hand before. Ward, did you... what happened to it?” she asked, but he knew he didn't have to answer. FitzSimmons already told her about chemicals used to remove the soul ink. He just never heard of a mark reappearing again, and he didn't know what to think and how to feel.

 

“Why did you remove it?” she asked and if there was a hint of betrayal in her voice, he didn't dare considering it. Her eyes searched his face for a couple of moments as he tried his best to clamp shut and keep her away. But, like many times before, she seemed to find something, catch onto something, or maybe it was the physical contact, two of her hands holding his and her inked wrist pressed against his and the fact that the burn was gone and the pain was gone and his mind has gone quiet. “Nevermind. You're not going in there alone.”

 

“Where? Skye, I'm an adult -”

 

“Who just suffered a trauma. And shouldn't be alone,” she said.

 

“Skye -”

 

“It's helping, isn't it? It...,” he noticed the change in her breathing as she looked down at their hands. “It's calming you down.”

 

He remembered, of course, all the bullshit people talked about soul bonds, all the magic about intuitive understanding and instant connection and such. And he had spent his youth and adulthood telling himself it was all a fairy tale for the naïve.

 

And _yet_.

 

It was as if he could feel what she felt – not in detail and not with precision, it was more like a general impression that felt like his own emotion. And his small, feisty rookie felt disbelief and shock and relief and longing. And she felt protective – of him – so much that it seemed she would rip the world apart for him. So when she tugged him with her, he followed, tired and confused and at the end of his strengths, and for a moment he was still sitting on that church floor and Skye was tugging his arm over her shoulder. As if she could lift him up.

 

Grant stared at the space of her room. There was just the bed, soft and inviting. He opted to sit on the floor. Skye dropped next to him, her searching eyes fixed on his face, as she arranged a pillow behind his head.

 

Grant felt strange and exposed. Skye always made him feel vulnerable, but up until now he was able to avoid it. Completely. He'd pack it all away and shut it down and now the staff has messed up all of him – his mind, but his body as well. He was staring at his wrist when he felt Skye's fingers wrapping around. The soul ink was momentarily hidden from his view.

 

“Hey,” her voice was a whisper, and so familiar as if he knew it since forever. “Go to sleep,” she said.

 

It sounded so simple.

 

He wrapped his ink with the fingers of his other hand. (He didn't want his bird to leave again.)

 

 

 

*

 

_That is such a strange ink_ , they used to say to her. _You must have drawn it yourself._

 

She spent her childhood angrily explaining that she couldn't. She was just a child. She spent her youth ignoring any comments about her soul – mark. Not only was her symbol so unique that lot of people called her an abomination for it, Skye often felt like she wasn't supposed to have any.

 

Nothing in her life ever stayed after all.

 

(Who would want _her_ anyway?)

 

And then this happened.

 

Grant had a symbol identical to hers. The sight of his left wrist was shocking – she saw his wrist before, and there was just his pale skin. Nothing else. He told her he never erceived a mark in the first place – and had that been the truth, no mark would appear now in his adult age.

It happened only if the person had their mark removed.

 

Skye's thoughts were racing. There was something ever since he said he was trying to protect her. There was something about his looming dark figure and serious face as she tried to downplay emotional weight of everything he was saying just to make her act more cautious. _Don't be serious_ she thought to herself, don't ever be so serious– it was the universal tactic for keeping herself away from hurt. As long as something didn't matter, it couldn't hurt her. And to him everything mattered. _She_ mattered. And she told herself carefully not to hope. He didn't have any drawing on himself anyway, and when she asked he told her that he simply didn't have it. And maybe she wasn't destined to have one either. (Maybe they could fit together because of that.)

 

It was possible, of course. It was just extremely rare. Skye remembered sitting in her little bed in the orphanage and holding her wrist in the dark. She couldn't see her bird but she knew its shape – it was a phoenix, one sister told her, and it was special. A rare kind of symbol. Phoenix rises from the ashes, child, the sister said kindly. At that young age she thought there was at least someone who believed her. As an adult Skye knew the sister maybe was simply kind enough not to criticize her. Many orphans didn't have any soul marks. (Later, Skye read, the psychological consequences of abandonment and lack of proper attachment in early childhood resulted in stress that prevented the development of soul marks.) Some children from the orphanage, usually older, went to the town to tattoo shops and came back with drawings on their arms. Usually ordinary things. Those didn't bring up suspicion – after all, lot of people simply didn't meet their soulmates. Or they did, but they chose not to spend lives with them. Anyone could have gotten away with an ordinary looking tattoo posing as a soul mark. It removed the stigma at least. Who wouldn't want to belong with someone out there?

 

Except hers. Hers always raised eyebrows.

 

Skye remembered sitting in a cold church and looking at the solemn faces of saints. Phoenixes rise from ash and fire, she thought, so how come she was always surrounded with cold?

 

And now she was looking at Grant, bruised, battered, shaken up and asleep, sitting on the floor next to her bed, with his face on her pillow. He was cradling his wrist and the drawing of the phoenix, a phoenix identical to hers was halfway hidden by his palm. Yet, it didn’t feel like he was trying to hide it, because everything about him, the way he breathed and the way he moved radiated hurt. He held his wrist as if it was burning with pain.

 

He had the ink removed, she thought. Skye knew enough to know the process was painful and terrible and had consequences on both body and – in lack of better term – soul. May and Coulson still had theirs, she thought. They kept them despite the job they've been doing, so that wasn't enough of a reason. But he had his removed, and as she wondered why, she couldn't help the pain in her chest. He was – he was _hers_ , but he didn't want to be. He didn't even want the chance to meet her and recognize her, because that would have happened the moment the saw each other, if he still had his mark.

 

_No_ , she thought firmly.

 

She couldn't think like that. Shouldn't. She needed to focus and think. Because Grant wasn't feeling well. She had to take care of him. He was hers and she had to take care of him. He was _hers_. He was the very person she thought of and dreamed about all those nights in her orphanage bed when she looked at her wrist and wondered where he or she was, and if she was ever going to meet them, and how. He was the one, even if he had his own ink removed – and she knew that had to be serious, serious issue. She looked worriedly at him and remembered bits and things he said about his brothers, she thought of how he reacted after he touched the staff earlier today – he wasn't just angry and filled with rage. At first he seemed terrified.

 

Whatever happened in his past, in his family, _had_ to be awful. She wondered what his parents did, and based on things she knew about him, both the things he said and the way he acted – emotionally distant and afraid to attach himself – she wondered if his parents simply turned the blind eye.

 

Skye wondered suddenly if he did it because he felt alone. Because he was convinced that he was better off alone.

 

Overwhelmed with sudden urge and pain that erupted in her chest she leaned closer to hold his wrist. And in his sleep Grant just sighed deeply, as if he felt relieved.

 

 

*

 

It was the dream he dreamed a thousand times. The one that never ended, but despite that Grant knew how it would end. He lived that dream once.

 

He woke up gasping. That didn't happen in years now, but the asgardian relic seemed to have shattered him completely. He was disoriented and sore, staring into the unfamiliar darkness for a split of a second when someone jerked next to him.

 

“Grant,” Skye gasped and he remembered what happened – his soul mark, the way she touched him, the way she had the immediate effect on him. His first reaction was to reach for her because touching her made everything stop, but in his mind he could hear John warning him about the soul links, about how they can only compromise him. Which was why he had to remove his mark in the first place – going through therapy course changed body's biology, so even if he met his soulmate, nothing would happen.

 

Of course, there were exceptions. There were always exceptions. Stressful events could reverse everything. His wrist was burning again and when he glanced down at it he thought he could see the reddened skin around his mark. “Grant,” Skye was saying. She touched his face and the calm was there, but not because she was somehow magical, as some people described their bonding.

 

(Oh God. _Bonding_.)

 

She was _real_. She was real in the way the dream was not; she was here, and present, made of flesh and blood and carefully touching his face. Her eyes were serious and uncharacteristically deep and he suddenly realized why she woke up at the exact moment he did as well.

 

“Skye,” he said, placing his palm over hers, where it rested against his cheek. “Can I see your hand?”

 

Her look reflected how he felt. Hesitant and vary. He didn't want to be the source of that look in her eyes, and that's why he didn't want her to bond with him, to know him in that kind of way – except her skin too looked aflame.

 

“Grant,” she whispered, anxiously searching his eyes with hers. “Did that happen? At that... well?”

 

_Bonding happens through an intense shared emotional experience_.

 

Accidentally, to lot of people it meant sex. And sex worked just fine, too. To two of them, it might have been this entire wretched day. It might have happened without him even noticing, in fact it might have started back on that day when she poked his chest and called him a toolbag and challenged every stare he sent her way. Every touch, every remark, every time she made his heart stutter was a tiny step in reversing the process.

 

Skye would _know_ him. It was inevitable now. She would get to see, gradually, everything he had done, and just as Garrett said, that he was weak. That he was never a material to bond with, and he never should have allowed this to happen. With a stabbing pain in his chest and dread in his gut he moved to get up, but her gentle hand became firm.

 

“Grant, no,” she was saying. “Please... _please_ don't leave.”

 

His attention shifted from himself to her and immediately he can just... _sense_ it. Jemma used to talk about it with Fitz and Skye over coffees – synchronized brainwaves, genetic compatibility, electric impulses, the mechanics of connection. The controversial biology of soul bond explained through Jemma's excited yet detached vocabulary that belonged to a lab, not a breakfast table. Yet Skye listened to all of it with shiny eyes, like someone listened to a fairy tale come true. To feel it was completely different.

 

It was almost as if he could touch it – the fear wrapping itself around her heart, making it shrink as she believed he was going to _reject_ her because he didn't want her.

 

His wish to make her see that he would never leave her to be alone again was incomparable to his fear of her seeing him for who he truly was. For the first time since he touched the beserker staff Grant felt like he was doing something on his own volition, and like he was able to pull himself out of the confines of his mind.

 

“I won't,” he said.

 

Maybe that was why they called it the soul bond and thought it was a destiny.

 

Because once you tasted it, you could only want more.

 

Grant took her hands and she leaned in closer. Skye reached for him, drawing impossibly nearer.Her hair was hiding half of her face and he needed to see it. Skye turned into his palm when it touched her cheek. It scared him to death and felt more natural than anything else he knew.

 

“It wasn't your fault,” she said. He shook his head, as he knew exactly what she was talking about. He wanted to hide, but her hands were framing his face and he could feel the intention behind the gesture, and her resolve to show him that she wasn't going away.

 

“I should have stood up to him -”

 

“You would have, if you could,” her voice was a whisper, his hands were safe in hers, her forehead was pressed against his face. He was trying to hold back, to think of all those other terrible things he never wanted her to find out, but her warmth, present and soft, seemed more powerful than the cold pit of his past.

 

She kissed him first, and for a moment he couldn't move or think; he could barely breathe; but when she pulled away and smiled it left like she was breathing the air back into him.

 

It wasn't like any other kiss he had before. Skye smiled, just barely, and he felt like she was seeing his insecurities, his darkness, the shape of his secrets – and she kept on looking. “It's okay,” she said. Her lips closed softly against his. It couldn't be real, he thought, and wanted nothing more than for it to be real. “You'll tell me when you're ready. Don't think about it now.”

 

Skye was inside his personal space. She was in his senses and in his mind and her hands were staring to roam his shoulders as she looked for a comfortable position on his lap. Getting rid of his clothes was difficult because he didn't want to part with her. Not for a moment. His heart was hammering against his ribs, in anticipation and fear but he couldn't make himself stop. She was pulling on his shirt impatiently and tossing hers aside and suddenly his hands were on her, his skin was against hers. “Skye,” he said as he stared at her as she took off her bra. It felt like his ability to speak was gone, and the vocabulary of thirty something years and five different languages were reduced to one word. They were pulling on each other's clothes in haste until there was nothing left.

 

His heart was beating wildly and his breath was labored. Suddenly he could see why so many people sealed their bond this way, but he wasn't sure what came first. Was he drawn to her because she carried the mark he had to erase? Or was it just her, the indestructible determination to find good in the world, in other people, in _him_.

 

Was it because he felt like a hero with her?

 

She was naked on his lap, moving her hair away and behind her back, so he could see entire expanse of her soft skin, the warm glow against the dimmed light in her room, the tender line of her collar bone, small breasts he could cover completely with his hands; soft curves of her waist and lightly toned muscles in her arms.

 

Skye was looking at him as if she was about to turn away and hide. He could almost feel how wildly her own heart was beating while she was waiting for his judgment. As if she somehow wasn't _enough_.

 

Grant shook his head lightly and framed her cheeks with his hands. He didn't dare touching her anywhere else for the fear that if he did so now, he wouldn't be able to stop.

 

“I don't want to do this on the floor,” he said.

 

Skye was the one to pull him up from the floor. Her right hand, his left, and two identical marks on them. He forgot the bruises all over his body, so when his muscles protested, Skye settled her hands on his hips.

 

He took a breath and took her hands in his. And he smiled.

 

She smiled back.

 

“Hi,” she said and smiled mischievously, the way she did when she wanted to shake his defenses. For the first time he could smile back without hesitation.

 

With her right hand in his left Skye stood on her tiptoes to kiss him. This time he gave in the urge to touch her, move his fingers through her hair, frame her face as he kissed her back, hold her shoulders, touch her breasts. Skye's eyes were dark as the night as she pushed him to bed and climbed on top of him, and to him it felt perfect. He could see all of her, each expression she made as she wrapped her fingers around him and carefully took him into her body.

 

“Skye,” he breathed as her hair fell all around him. Her lips were hot and heavy as she kissed him and moved above him, desperately chasing connection and wanting _more_. Grant held her hips, stroked her sides, did every little thing that made her moan and squirm. She desperately asked for more and faster and harder until she went rigid above him. Grant flipped them, soaking up the sight of her unraveling beneath him, happy that he was the one who brought the blissful expression to her face.

 

“Your turn,” she said when he entered her again and he fucked her and held her hand. Skye pulled him down so she could kiss him, she made him move slowly as she whispered things in his ear, repeated how he was so good to her, how much she wanted him. There were things she wasn't saying but he still knew them – that she could feel his darkness but wasn't going to turn away. He pressed his face against her neck, keeping most of his weight off her as she stroked his arms and shoulders and ran her fingers through his hair.

 

His mind went blank and the world exploded and Skye held him tight as his body shuddered above hers. And after she just held him on top of herself, stroking his back and placing kisses on his shoulder.

 

Reluctantly, he moved, shifting to his side and bringing her body to rest against his. Skye took his left hand and kissed his wrist and he knew with complete certainty that the bond was completed. A small voice in his mind was telling him that he shouldn't have done it, that the was opening himself up to a weakness, but Skye's eyes were shining in front of him. The voice of fear mattered less and less, until his body finally felt calm and heavy and his mind fell silent. Nothing mattered but the complete knowledge of her within his reach.

 

Grant had plenty of sex in his life, but as cheesy as it sounded, he never made love to anyone. Until now.

 

Skye shifted and moved closer, until she was pressing her face against his chest.

 

“You know,” she said sleepily, “I'm not cold.”

 

“Oh,” he said, his senses reaching out to her as he tested the bond between them. Cold meant something, he decided, but couldn't tell what just yet. He was fine with that – for the first time in his life it felt safe and okay not to know every detail and every piece of information. He didn't have to prepare himself. He didn't have to be the single solution. Skye's fingers wrapped around his wrist, and he let himself fall asleep thinking about finding solutions with her, together.

 

 

  
  



End file.
